The ¡Salud! Students Southwest Exchange

Currently over 100 low-income and minority students from the United States are enrolled on full scholarship at the Latin American Medical School in Havana. One quarter of them are from California; 75% are African-American, 20% are Latino, and over 90% come from low-income families.

In the summer of 2009, 12 of these students traveled on the ¡Salud! Southwest Exchange to learn about health conditions in American Indian Nations and other marginalized communities, visit community colleges and universities, present in their own words what it is like to study at the Latin American Medical School, and provide information to prospective applicants about this full-scholarship program. The ELAM team’s itinerary ws coordinated with the respective community leaders, and included volunteering services where requested.

These US students study medicine alongside their peers from 29 countries throughout Central and South America, the Caribbean and Africa.  They represent not only some of the brightest and most courageous medical students our country has to offer, but also originate from some of the toughest and poorest US communities.  The settlements and communities they visited represent the type of underserved communities where they have pledged to work upon graduation.

MEDICC was pleased to contribute guidance and fiscal sponsorship to this group of highly motivated future physicians. We look forward to working with them again in 2010.

Student participants in the Exchange with Dr. Arthur Kaufman and Dr. Pope Moseley of the University of New Mexico. (l to r): Cassandra Cusack Curbelo, Joanna Mae Souers, Dr. Pope Moseley, Dr. Arthur Kaufman, Jesus Sotomayor, Alicia Garcia, and Ian Fab.